Eric Church on Scalping: ‘It Should Be Illegal’

Eric Church has been extremely vocal about his frustration with scalpers, primarily because he wants his fans to have tickets to his show — and to buy them for a fair price.

“It’s criminal,” the ‘Give Me Back My Hometown’ singer tells US99.5 in Chicago, adding that in he and his team’s fight against scalping, “We’re going to do everything we can.”

He recently took action in Minneapolis, canceling tickets purchased by scalpers, and then putting them back on sale for fans. “We certainly made it a focal point with this entire tour that we’re going to make it as difficult as we can for them to do their job … I want people to understand that part of my problem with it is … the fairness. If it was a level playing field, it wouldn’t be what it is.”

For Church, he wants his fans to have a fair chance at the best tickets, which simply isn’t possible when there are big ticket brokers involved that want to scalp tickets to add a little cash to their pockets. He details, “As a fan, when you get on the internet or you get on the phone, you have a minute percentage of the same chance a scalping company has,” and adds earnestly, “It should be criminal. My big problem is that it’s not an illegal activity.”

The act of reselling tickets for profit is illegal in some states, heavily regulated in others and weakly monitored in others. There’s little uniformity across the nation, but according to SeatGeek, Minnesota (where Church bit back at scalpers trying to steal from his fans — has no anti-scalping laws.

He didn’t experience a lot of scalping until he started playing (and selling out) large venues, and realized hundreds of seats would sit empty, even if the show was sold out.

“We can’t fix it we can only make it better, and that’s what we’re trying to do,” he concludes, hoping scalpers will become the outsiders in the quest for tickets.

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